Christmas Delights 3 (16 page)

“Daddy!” she shouted in glee as she cuddled in tight. Just
her weight in his arms and her scent made some of his tension slip away. Jason
and Emma were a formidable team against the memories. Deefur scrabbled past him
but lost traction on the tiles and ended up slipping under the table. The whole
solid pine table moved, and Deefur emerged looking sheepish before shaking from
nose to tail.

“Bed, Deefur,” Jason commanded. Deefur immediately slunk to
his bed and made a big show of circling and mouthing the material before he
slumped down nose to tail with a put-upon sigh.

“He’s been like this all day,” Jason said fondly. “I think
he knew it was going to snow; it’s like he has the wind in his tail.”

“We made cookies,” Emma announced. “Santas and trees, but we
didn’t have donkeys, so guess what we used.”

Cameron didn’t give away that he knew. He settled Emma back
on her feet.

“I don’t know, pumpkin, what did you use?”

“Elephants,” she announced grandly. “I’m ’tending their fat
donkeys an’ I chopped off the trunks.”

“That is such a good idea,” Cameron praised. Emma grinned up
at him.

“Will you help me decorate them?”

“Of course I will, I just need a shower first. Is that
okay?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “They’ll be very hot for a long time,”
she advised seriously. “We have hours and hours. I’m gonna put on
Muppet
Christmas
.” She left the kitchen in a rush and the next thing Cameron heard
was the familiar music of the movie.

Jason pulled out a tray of cookies from the oven and laid it
on a glass chopping board. “I don’t know about Deefur, but Emma is so excited
she can’t sit still. We’ve done paper chains, cookies, wrapped your presents,
walked the dog, watched the Muppets once already today, all in between
discussing why or why not Santa would be bringing her a bike.” He lifted each
cookie gently off the tray and onto a cooling rack.

Cameron listened to the words, all the things Jason had done
with Emma, the scents of a perfect Christmas filling their house, and love
overwhelmed him and tears choked his throat.

“Jason,” he said. He didn’t know what he wanted to say, but
so much was shut up inside his head, all his fears about tomorrows and how long
this happiness could last. Deefur stirred in his bed and let out a doggy snort,
and in a smooth move, Cameron went to his knees and buried his hands in
Deefur’s fur.

“I get it, you know,” Jason said softly from his side.
Cameron glanced up to see Jason crouched down next to him. “Christmas isn’t the
easiest time for memories.”

“I just…” Cameron stopped.

“It’s fine, Cam.” Jason touched his arm. “The snow and ice
today… I promise you, it’s honest and real to feel the way you do. He was your
husband, the other half of you. You love him.”

“Jason, we need to talk—”

“Jason! The DVD won't work, it just stopped.”

Jason grinned at Cameron as if the conversation they were
having was done. “Talk later,” he said with a nod. Cameron, coward that he was,
decided he was happy to leave the memories in his head where they were. He had
to make Jason see he wasn’t lost in the past, but scared for the future. Yes, he
had every right to grieve, but not on Christmas Eve, when his lover and his
daughter were here for him.

“Coming, Em,” Jason said and pushed himself to stand.
Cameron stayed where he was and laid a hand on Deefur’s heart. Jason’s words,
he
was the other half of you
, left Cameron feeling unbearably sad. Yes, Mark
had been his partner, his lover, his husband, and deciding to become a family
had been natural, but Cameron was with Jason now. How much longer was it okay
for Cameron to worry and fear and base his future on a tragedy in the past? Why
was Jason so understanding? Shouldn’t he be angry and demanding for Cameron to
stop? Even if he didn’t want to, he had to, because Cameron was having a damn
hard time doing it himself.

Selfish. Cameron Jackson, you need to get your head out
of your ass and stop being so fucking selfish.

By the time Jason returned to the kitchen, Cameron had
pulled himself together and excused himself for a shower. With determination,
he pushed away all the
what if
s and made a concerted effort to focus on
the here and now. He pulled on worn, soft jeans, the ones with the tears at the
base of his butt, the ones that never failed to have Jason spend all evening
with his hand on Cameron’s ass. Then he chose the sapphire blue university
sweatshirt that was so old the logo had faded—Jason once said he loved the way
it made Cameron’s eyes look so much bluer. Finally Cameron opened his sock
drawer and chose last year’s Santa socks that Emma had bought him. If you
couldn’t wear them on Christmas Eve, when could you?

Reaching into the back of the drawer, his hand connected
with his box of memories and treasures, and without thought he took it back to
sit on the bed.

“Daddy, we’re decorating cookies,” Emma informed him from
the door.

“Close the door and come here, baby,” Cameron said
immediately. “I have some things to show you.”

“What about the donkeys?” Emma asked, concerned.

“In a bit,” he said. “Look, this is you when you were born.”
He held up two photos of Emma as a baby, and she peered at them closely.

“I was all wrinkly,” she said with a frown.

“All babies are like that.”

“Even you?”

“Even me. And look, this is Mark holding you.”

Emma took the photo from his hand. “He’s nice.”

“He loved you,” Cameron said gently.

She looked up at him, and Cameron knew he was losing his
audience. Being this little wasn’t any age to have in-depth discussions of who
would have loved her if they’d still been alive.

“Like Jason loves me,” she said finally.

“Just like that,” Cameron said gently. Then he added. “I have
something to ask you. Serious stuff, you okay to listen to me?”

Emma clambered off his lap and onto the quilt. Scrambling to
sit cross-legged, she finally waited with an expectant expression on her cute
features. “Yep,” she said.

“You want to call Jason
daddy
?” he asked. Because
that was the only way he could think of explaining what he wanted.

“I already call you daddy,” Emma said carefully. “I could
call him something else, like Daddy J or something.”

“He’d like that.”

“But—” Emma bit her lip. “—he’s not like you; he’s not my
proper daddy.”

Cameron glanced back to make sure the door was shut. “What
if I
want
to make Jason your proper daddy.”

“Like…how?”

Cameron fingered the box he’d slipped in his pocket. The
same ring he’d hidden in his memories box since he’d bought the simple bands
two weeks before. “I was thinking
we
could ask him to marry us.”

Emma said nothing; instead, she threw herself at him with a
dramatic hug. “I’d love that. Then he could be my real daddy.”

“But it’s a secret,” Cameron said. “You can’t tell him yet.”

“I can keep secrets. I didn’t tell anyone Freddy was eating
crayons.” She smiled up at him with her dimples of cute. Then she got serious.
“You can’t tell anyone about Freddy.”

Cameron placed a cross on his heart. “Promise.”

“Can we go ice cookies now?”

“After one last hug.”

Emma squeezed him tight, and after a short tickle session,
the two emerged into the kitchen breathless and red in the face. Jason turned
from the oven, his hands in gloves and yet another tray of cookies in all their
elephant goodness spread on the flat surface.

“Looks like you two had a tickle fight,” he said with a grin.

Cameron raised his hands in the air. “I won.”

“No you didn’t Daddy, I did,” Emma said. The two exchanged
grins and the last of the tension in Cameron slid away. He crossed to Jason and
took advantage of the fact that his lover had his hands full to sneak in a
sideways kiss. Jason huffed a laugh, and they broke apart. Jason mixed up green
icing, with Cameron in charge of red, and Emma concentrated hard on making
brown for the donkeys.

The cookie icing passed with a lot of laughter, and when
Cameron had eaten his twentieth discarded elephant trunk, even he had to call
time on any more eating of the actual cookies. Emma was happy to sit and watch
a movie after they had tidied up, and Jason grasped Cameron’s hand, looking
utterly determined.

“Did you see what I bought?” He indicated up on to the
doorframe between dining room and hall. From the frame hung a bundle of mistletoe
wrapped with red ribbon.

“We don’t need that to start a kiss,” Cameron teased. He
leaned back on the doorframe and tugged Jason’s snowman-emblazoned sweater
until Jason had no choice but to step forward and into his arms. Jason chuckled
as he tumbled forward, and Cameron caught the laugh in a kiss. Passion ignited
between them as they embraced beneath the mistletoe. Just a single touch from
Jason, and Cameron was hard and needy. He reached up and curled his hands into
Jason’s soft, dark hair, and he tilted his head to deepen the kiss. Jason
groaned low and deep and rested his hands on Cameron’s hips.

“I love you so much,” Jason said as they parted for air.
Cameron didn’t release the grip in Jason’s hair and stared deep into hazel
eyes. Jason was his everything and he wanted to ask him now, here in the
hallway of their home. He made to move away from the door, but his sweater
snagged on something, and distracted, he pulled but couldn’t move.

Jason untangled the hole in the sweater from the nail sticking
out of the wall. “Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “My bad, I had to move the wiring
for the fairy lights for the mistletoe to stay up.”

“I go to work for one day and you destroy the house?”
Cameron deadpanned.

Jason waggled his eyebrows and deepened his voice. “It only
takes one day,” he said dramatically.

The moment to ask Jason passed as Emma came out to
investigate their laughter with Deefur in tow. All of them ended up in a heap
on the floor with Deefur on his back and four paws in the air. Emma clambered
over him, and he huffed a low woof before settling to allow her to do whatever
she needed. Cameron scooted back to lean against the wall, watching as Jason
rough played with Deefur and Emma. He was so careful, but so invested in
reducing Emma to giggles and getting Deefur racing around the house all rabbity
and mad-eyed.

Emma was easy to get to bed. At three, nearly four, she was
still young enough for sleep to overcome excitement, and it was only seven pm
when she finally gave in and was tucked in with the Christmas bag hanging on
the end of her bed.

“Ready to put this bike together?” Jason said, stretching
tall and walking his fingers on the low ceiling. Cameron could no more resist
touching his lover than Deefur could not eat everything in sight. The hug moved
into a heated kiss. Evenings where they started just by kissing and hugging
always ended up with the hottest, most passionate lovemaking Cameron had ever
experienced. The slow buildup was perfect.

Like a million dads all over the world, building the bike
was a source of pride and of great irritation.

“The picture made it look so easy,” Cameron grumped.

Jason took the piece of cerise pink plastic from Cameron and
turned it the other way up. In that position it slid neatly over the handle.

“There you go,” he said. Then he sat back on his haunches to
admire the little bike with its training wheels. He looked so ridiculously
proud that Cameron wanted to ask him to marry him there and then. But he
didn’t. Not when Deefur sauntered up next to them and whined.

Jason petted him, then turned his attention back to the
bike, fiddling with the training wheels with an intense look of concentration
on his face. Deefur whined again and this time he lay down with his head on his
paws.

“What’s wrong, boy?” Cameron asked.

“He ate an entire family bag of Cheetos this morning,” Jason
said. Stopping what he was doing, he joined Cameron in ruffling Deefur’s fur.
“All that was left were suspicious orange stains on his muzzle and an empty bag
added to his collection in the hedge.”

“Didja, Deefur?” Cameron leaned in to kiss the dog’s head.
“You got tummy ache?” He chuckled as he said this. Deefur had a way of eating
the weirdest stuff, and he would add each empty container to what amounted to a
trophy cabinet in the twisted undergrowth of the row of bushes at the back of
their yard. Jason found a shoe out there last week, chewed in half and proudly
placed in with two egg boxes and an empty carton of orange juice. Deefur butted
his hand as Cameron stroked from the tip of his nose to scratch between his
eyes.

“Right, we’re done,” Jason announced. He stood and picked up
the bike. “We gonna wrap this?” he asked doubtfully. “We could just put a throw
over it, or undo a roll of paper and somehow…” He stopped, then turned the bike
this way and that.

“I love that you are even stopping to consider what to do.”

Jason wrinkled his nose. “I want this Christmas to be
special for Emma.” He looked Cameron in the eye. “It’s important to me.”

Cameron stood and removed the bike from Jason’s hold before
hugging him close. “What is special is that you are here with us,” he said.
“Now, I’m making hot chocolate, you want some?”

“With marshmallows and cream?” Jason said hopefully.

Cameron shook his head in exasperation. He was the one with
the sweet tooth, yet he would pile on the weight if he wasn’t careful. But,
Jason, the man who could take or leave sugary goodness, had the metabolism of a
racehorse. “I wouldn’t make it any other way,” he said softly.

They kissed and just then would have been the perfect time
to ask Jason to marry him, but maybe after the chocolate when they were sitting
with the main lights off and the room lit only by the tree lights. That would
be better. Decision made, he moved to the kitchen and took a second look when
he saw the entire string of fairy lights in the hall had fallen haphazard to
the floor. Clearly, hanging them by the one remaining hook wasn’t enough to
hold them upright. Shaking his head and storing away the teasing he could do to
Jason later, he scooped up the lights and with some twisting, managed to get
them to stay up. He stepped back to admire them and stood on something squishy
underfoot.